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Tuesday, 15 July 2008

Most Loathed books

Congratulations to Salman Rushdie for winning the Booker of Booker's Prize with Midnight's Children - though I would have voted for Coetzee's Disgrace for its impenetrable bleakness.

Salman Rushdie also figures in the Sunday Times article on writers', critics' and journos' Most loathed books.

His excellent Midnight's Children is selected as are books by Ian McEwan and Martin Amis, though I do get the feeling this might be because all three writers are, in some ways, what Marjane Satrapi would call "annoying".

DH Lawrence, Doris Lessing and Virginia Wolf also gets picked as does Dostoevsky, which shows that nothing is sacred.

Ian Rankin even has the temerity to choose The Road by Cormac McCarthy, an incredibly written work that manages to wrestle a little bit of hope from the most desperate of circumstances.

Add an "On" to McCarthy's book, and you have my selection. I know, I know, On the Road, the great road novel, Robert Frank, The Americans, but I just don't care for it and I would prefer the Americans with a different introduction.

In McCarthy's book, when things go bad you get eaten or shot, In Kerouac's book, when things go bad, Sal's aunt wires him some cash and everyone continues on their sad, little way.